Saturday, March 31, 2012

Hunger Games (2012)

Written by Gary Ross, Billy Ray, Suzanne Collins (book)

Directed by Gary Ross

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson & Woody Harrelson

This is an enjoyable movie. It has all the elements you could ask for; Forbidden Love, oppression, government propaganda, social politics, raw emotion. It’s a real coming of age tale… oh yeah, and ritualistic brutal sport killing for a sloth of commercial onlookers cheering on the adolescent violence.

The story is basically this; the social order intimidates the masses by requiring they submit a young boy and girl to compete in the annual “hunger games” to project fear and power over the lower classes. Interestingly, this film only covers the first book and so the injustices are still very real at the end of this movie.

A strange characteristic of this movie is how deep and intense each characters emotions are. They have such strong feelings for one another even though they are all aware they will have to kill one another in the end. But the movie is done well and the audience is drawn in and can’t help but caring for each character even thought their all destined to die.

No rating. This was obviously going to be a hit with the following of the books. It’s done well enough to bring the crowds and its enjoyable to watch. It might be good to read the book before you see the movie.